Global report warns of escalating cancer rate

A coalition of international cancer experts is warning that the global cancer burden will double over the next two decades with an increasing concentration of cases in low-income and middle-income countries.

The Cancer Treatment Informal Working Group (CanTreat International) released a new report, "The Hidden Epidemic: Women's Cancers in Low- and Middle-Income Countries," at ECCO/ESMO 2009 (abstract 31).

More than half of the 12.4 million estimated new cases of cancer, and two-thirds of the estimated 7.6 million cancer deaths in 2008, occurred in developing countries, where cancer kills more people each year than AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, according to the CanTreat International report.

The document also highlights growing incidence of breast cancer and cervical cancer in middle-income Eastern Europe and Russia. Copies of the report are available at www.axios-group.com.